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Chapter Text

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 12: Close to the Edge Part I - The Solid Time of Change
Scene 1: The Depths of Your Disgrace

12.1
The Depths of Your Disgrace

The U.S.S. Escort’s bolian first officer, Lieutenant Commander Zizira Gross, had no idea how to address the violence General Krank had visited on Transporter Chief Eva Mendez. 

Mendez had made it through 18 years of service, including the entirety of both the Klingon and Dominion wars without a scratch. And she had been in the front line on both wars, serving with Rhonda Carter on this ship, the U.S.S. Escort, which had been in the thick of nearly every major battle.

Now, after all that time, she had been horribly wounded by a friend. Deliberately. It did not matter that Krank had done it to prevent her from stopping her own captain from re-taking her ship from aliens that had her in their trance. 

Her jaw had been shattered and despite the best efforts of Chief Medical Technician Kara Garrity, Mendez would be drinking her meals through a straw for the next 6 weeks, or until they managed to deliver her to a proper medical facility. Garrity a tall, pale-skinned woman with light brown hair and eyes, and a broad, Slavic face, had done the best that she could do with the equipment available. Mendez, a veteran of two wars, was experiencing severe post traumatic stress disorder, often screaming in rage and fear, which did not help her recovery at all.

Once General Krank had verified that Lt. Cmdr. Gross was no longer under the spell of the holy warrior’s song, he had returned command of the ship to her. As first officer, Gross then had the unfortunate duty of confining Krank to his quarters. She had no idea what else to do. But she visited the ancient general daily for his advice.

Captain Rhonda Carter was recuperating in her own quarters, located adjacent to Krank’s. If recuperating was the correct word. With Chief Garrity’s regular treatments, Krank’s hearing was returning. The klingon might well not even have required such treatment due to his remarkable ability to recover from physical damage. 

The same could not be said of Rhonda Carter. As Zizira Gross left Krank’s quarters, she could hear Carter screaming again. The captain had recovered from the concussion that the elderly general’s ear-clap had dealt her, but her hearing was not returning at all. While she had returned to bridge duty, she was unable to take command due to her inability to communicate. Instead of sitting in the command chair, Carter would spend her shift stalking around the bridge, reviewing the readings on every screen over and over again.

At the moment, the 50-year-old veteran captain, one of the most highly decorated officers currently serving in Star Fleet, was screaming herself hoarse trying to hear something. Anything. Taking out her raw rage. She often had bloody knuckles from regularly beating the triluminum walls of her cabin.

Worse than all of this for Gross was her own overwhelming sense of shame and guilt that she had, herself, fallen victim to the song of the holy warrior. She had taken command of the Escort while under that spell. The only people onboard Escort who had not fallen under that spell were the ship’s andorian 2nd officer, Lt. Cmdr. Vranran zh’Kathar, and the tiny roylan chief engineer, Lt. Ki Kresid. The warrior’s song had made these two officers desperately ill and they had used an escape pod to flee the ship.

But the fact that even the two vulcans on the crew had fallen under the spell of the holy warrior’s song did not help lift the weight of guilt and shame from Gross.

She touched the door-chime to the captain’s quarters. Instead of generating a sound, the switch had been reprogrammed to cause the lights to flicker inside the captain's quarters. The captain stopped screaming and, after a moment, said, “Enter,” in a loud and clearly damaged voice.

Gross walked into the captain’s room for the second time since she had joined the crew nearly a year previously. There were only three individual staterooms, each, including the captain’s, barely large enough for a bed, a built-in work station, a foot locker, and a tiny, but private washroom. The remainder of the crew slept 4 or 6 to a room. The last time Gross had been in Rhonda Carter’s room, it had been barren of any personal effects with the sole exception of a photogram of Carter’s deceased wife. 

Now, bizarre, arcane symbols had been scrawled all over the walls, the desktop, the ceiling, the floor. Carter's face. Some were accomplished with grease pens, some with lipstick, some with various paints. Vats of strange liquids and brews bubbled restlessly on the desk and the top of the captain’s foot locker. 

Carter had, for the past year, taken to dying her iron gray hair a variety of bright shades of blue. At this moment, the captain’s long hair was wild and unkempt - a twisting, curling tangle of various shades of blue and some un-dyed sections of iron gray. The makeup around her eyes was far too heavy and dark, making her wide, bright blue eyes look wild, dangerous.

Gross was shocked. Whenever Carter was in public, she was still a little untidy, but nothing like this... Wild hair... Wild makeup... Arcane symbols scrawled on her face... 

Carter sat down wearily on the edge of her bed and held up her left hand. The computer recognized this motion and extended a robotic arm that was attached to the ceiling. A transparent screen was attached to this arm. Rhonda Carter grasped the bottom of the screen and interposed it between herself and her first officer. They could see each other through it.

“Out with it, Gross,” Carter croaked in a harsh, damaged voice. The words, “Out with it, Gross,” appeared on the screen.

“Sir, you really need to stop screaming,” the bolian first officer replied. “I know you can feel how badly it’s damaging your voice. And it’s unsettling for the crew…”

“Are the holy landers following us?” Carter asked.

“No sir,” Gross replied. “Long range telemetry indicates they are on almost an opposite heading from ours.” The bolian first officer dragged the chair over and sank into it.

“Turn us around, Zizira,” Carter ordered. “If they’re not following us, we need to follow them.” She readjusted the screen between them so she could more easily read the computer’s real-time transcription of Gross’s words.

“Captain?” Gross asked.

“Since they aren’t following us, we must assume they’re headed back home. We need to follow them. They know the way out of here.”

“But Captain… that’s the opposite direction than where we came from,” Gross objected.

“”Yeah,” Carter croaked. “I think where we came from is just the in-door. And these holy landers know where the out-door is. The way out of here. That is where we need to go. Why did you betray me?”

Gross shook her head. Again, Rhonda Carter’s eyes were frightening her, surrounded as they were by dark blue makeup. Wide. Piercing. Angry.

“Sir? I didn’t…” Gross started.

Carter cut her off with a throaty roar. “You sent me and Krank down to that planet!! YOU!!! You took command of my ship!!! You’re still in command!!! BITCH!!! TRAITOR!!!”

Gross jumped out of the chair. “I didn’t…”

"YOU KNOW YOU DID!!!" Carter rose from the bed, smacked the screen out of the way, advancing on her first officer. “You’re doing it RIGHT NOW!!!” The volume the blue-haired captain was able to produce was astounding. Her voice was shredding.

“No…”

“LIAR!!  BITCH!!!”

“IT’S NOT MY FAULT!!!!” Gross screamed at the top of her lungs.

Carter was standing nose-to-nose with her. Or would have been if she hadn’t been significantly smaller than the bolian. Carter was only 5’0” and had never weighed more than 100 pounds. She was twenty years older than Gross, who was quite physically fit and well trained for a bolian. But Zizira Gross had no delusion. In a fist fight, Rhonda Carter could take down any three members of the Escort’s crew in seconds. Her ability as a warrior, and particularly in hand-to-hand combat was legendary. 

Gross was badly frightened. Crying freely. Trembling in fear. “It’s not my fault,” she said again, quietly.

Carter put her hands on Gross’s shoulders. Still looking aggressively into her first officer’s eyes.

“You’re goddamned right it’s not your fault.” Carter released her first officer and stepped back. She backed up and sagged onto her bed.

Somehow, Gross knew she had been dismissed. She backed toward the door, still looking in wonder at the wild-haired captain and her insanely decorated quarters.

Just as the door opened behind Gross, Carter looked up, croaked in a loud voice: “And Zizira…”

“Yes sir?”

“If any of the crew complain about me screaming, ask them why the fuck they aren’t screaming themselves. It would do them some good.”

“Aye sir,” Gross said, then made good her escape.

12.1